Category: Rede Valley Railway

The Rede Valley Railway is where Chathill on the East Coast main Line meets Whitrope and Shankend on The Waverley route.

The layout is physically located in the roof space of my house in north west Northumberland, in the heart of the Rede Valley. The Waverley Route inspired diorama on The layout is the fictional Rede Head Summit. It's a "what if" that assumes the original scheme to build a direct railway from Newcastle to Edinburgh and Glasgow was never abandoned. George Stephenson advised that the gradients needed, and the 5 mile tunnel under the border ridge at Carter Bar were impractical. He surveyed an alternative route around the coast instead.

So we are left with a model that shows Chathill on the real East Coast Main Line, and Rede Head Summit and Carter Tunnel on the fictional route. In the future there will be a branch line running out of Chathill....But will it go to Seahouses like the real thing, or will it look more like the Border Counties? Or might Chathill get a name change to Otterburn, with a military railway into an army camp?